Note: I noticed the Hootsuite APAC folks were holding a neat event called #TheOwlys. As such, i said hello. Ergo:

Hello #Owls of #HootsuiteAPAC – i’m your great-uncle Daveo and I’m laden with creation myths and stories. Just saying hello to you #renegades celebrating social goodness at #TheOwlys. Perhaps one day I can say hello in person, in the meantime, I will send my stunt double.

I am especially proud of the community focused narrative of which I’ll share a bit here:

Investing in Community-Building Programs

But it’s important to note that freemium was just one part of our formula for user growth. Another big piece of the puzzle was investing in a fully functional community department at Hootsuite. In many startups, the community team – if there’s one at all – is treated as an extension of marketing or customer support. While their ostensible role may be “building a community” of users, they spend a lot of their time pitching products and fielding help calls.

Our community department, by contrast, didn’t have direct sales or support responsibilities. Instead, their primary mandate was to help people who already knew and loved our product connect with one another. They built out social media channels in a half-dozen key languages, enabling users around the world to share updates and learn about Hootsuite news and events. And they organized crowd-sourced translation efforts, recruiting international users to adapt our interface into local languages, everything from German and Italian to Thai and Chinese. (Amazingly, translations were volunteer-driven – motivated by love of the technology and a liberal helping of swag, i.e. stickers, t-shirts and cuddly stuffed animals inspired by our owl logo.)

Online efforts were supplemented by old-fashioned face-to-face events. In emerging markets, the community team helped users organize hundreds of free meetups (branded as “HootUps”), where people could get together and trade Hootsuite tips. Ultimately, a network of hundreds of volunteer “ambassadors” around the world took shape, enthusiastic users who spread the word about Hootsuite in their countries. Many of these ambassadors, not surprisingly, were bloggers, consultants and marketers who just so happened to have large online audiences of their own.

Cumulatively, these projects gave us entree into new markets, initiating the viral chain of adoption in other countries and spreading Hootsuite far beyond its original North American user base.

An article by Ryan Holmes talking about the tactics and methods Hootsuite used to build with small budgets and big fun including Hootups, community activities like translation project, creative swag and more…

But more money isn’t always the answer. In Hootsuite’s first three years, we grew our user base from zero to five million people. During that time, our marketing budget was pretty much non-existent. We turned instead to a pair of complementary, low-cost approaches to find and keep customers. It may well have made all the difference.

Freemium economics One fundamental decision made shortly after launching in 2009 was to make our social media tool a freemium service. The majority of our users — and we very quickly reached the million mark — paid nothing. They could (and still can) log in for free to view their social media accounts from one dashboard, schedule messages and see analytics. Companies that wanted beefed up functionality and extra support, paid a monthly fee, ranging from as little as $9 to $1,000 and up for large enterprises with lots of employees.

Why invest so many resources and so much bandwidth catering to millions of free users who would never account for a cent of revenue? For starters, freemium dramatically reduces the need for traditional marketing and sales efforts. Our free users — in steady, predictable numbers — became paid users. Instead of having to sell them on the merits of our product with expensive ads, we let them see for themselves. Our product became our best marketing tool and salesperson. On average more than half our paying customers, including large clients, start out as free users.

Meanwhile, our free user base fulfilled another key function: It kept us honest. Free users are fickle; they’re not locked in by a contract or any other obligations. They can, at any moment, pick up and take their “business” elsewhere. So to maintain and grow our free user base, we had to continually update our product, rolling out new features to stay ahead of the pack.

These same features helped us win and keep paying customers. While other corporate tools were years behind the social media curve, our efforts to satisfy free users meant we could offer big enterprise customers the latest technology.

Seeing value in community But the freemium approach wouldn’t have been as effective were it not for another equally important strategy: investing in a fully functional community department. In many startups, the community team, if there’s one at all, is treated as an extension of marketing or customer support. While their ostensible role may be “building a community” of users, they spend a lot of time pitching products and fielding help calls.

Our community department, by contrast, didn’t have direct sales or support responsibilities. Their primary mandate was to help people who already knew our product connect with one another. In the early days, they set up social media accounts in a half-dozen key languages, sharing updates with users around the world.

At the same time, they led a crowdsourced translation effort that saw our tool translated into more than a dozen local languages, from German and Italian to Thai and Chinese. (Amazingly, translations were volunteer-driven — motivated by love of the technology and a liberal helping of swag, i.e. stickers, T-shirts and cuddly stuffed animals inspired by our owl logo.)

Online efforts were supplemented by old-fashioned face-to-face events. In emerging markets, the community team helped users organize hundreds of free meetups (branded as “HootUps”), where people could get together and trade product tips. Ultimately, a network of hundreds of volunteer “ambassadors” around the world took shape, enthusiastic users who agreed to spread the word in their countries. Many of these ambassadors were bloggers, consultants and marketers whose own agenda of developing a large online following aligned well with ours.

Cumulatively, these projects gave us entree into new markets, initiating the viral chain of adoption in other countries and spreading our product beyond its original North American user base.

Day two or three, depending on how you count ‘em, of my 3rd quest to South by Southwest in Austin Texas… And I gotta say, it’s shaping up just fine man. You know, I’m keeping up a solid effort and fully professional about spreading the love of my job, and that’s going really well. Also very important to maximize the party and good times, and that, too, is progressing suitably well.

Me and John Biehler sit on a sunny day in Austin making the first batch of the (now legendary) HootKits featuring stickers, tattoos and pins in a Japanese rice paper, side-loading envelope. Photo by Jason Sanders (hire him).The origin of the legendary Hootkits started with Japanese rice paper envelopes, 2 Owly stickers, a tattoo and a pin

Despite shaking off some nasty flu and general haggardness from excess travel and in general just haven’t taking very good care of myself, and then coupled with some disorganization and long stories about things that didn’t get printed and didn’t get delivered and stuff, yeah it’s rolling along just fine.

Recap: Last night down at the Gingerman, one of my favourite beer drinking places (which has moved around the corner to a location that might even be finer than its previous, though I’m really surprised that’s even possible because that old location was just fine).

Yesterday I rallied up after my slumber and scarfed down some nasty coffee and went down to the Hideout Coffee Shop. I met up with this nice Canadian lady that I met every time that I’m down here and as soon as I walked in the door she said, “You’re here from Canada” and I’m like, “Yes I am!”

It was packed and hectic. Just like last year, I was late for these migas breakfast burritos laden with a bunch of leftover odds n ends shit: egg, cornflakes, etc. Tasty. I really needed a good proper breakfast! Where should I go? She told me some directions to this place and I thought I was going off track but then it all came together and I got some wicked blueberry pancakes at the Counter Cafe with poached eggs just the way i like em.

If you’re not careful you end up living on appetizers, which is why today I’m on a quest for a proper breakfast, so again, I am in some dire need of sustenance – need to nourish the body to nourish the soul. At the Hideout I got a big giant smoothie. It was quite charming.

Then, at the convention centre, I stood in line and got my badge! You gotta have a badge. If you don’t have a lanyard, man, you don’t belong.

Then I rallied with some buddies and we sat on the lawn drinking Sobe green tea. I had some Japanese envelopes from my papery stash — back from 1983! I was fortunate to be able to augment my stash with some more packets from a Japanese dollar store in Tinseltown. So I sat with some buddies (John and Jason) and I filled these wee dossiers with stickers, tattoos, pins and sealed my card in. It was like a bundle of diplomatic goodness. Good time doing arts and crafts in the sunshine.

Me and John Biehler sit on a sunny day in Austin making the first batch of the (now legendary) HootKits featuring stickers, tattoos and pins in a Japanese rice paper, side-loading envelope. Photo by Jason Sanders (hire him).

Then I found a little table to setup. I was curious about a press release I had put out so checked on that while thinking about issues about privacy, elitism, notions about early adoption, etc.

Then I headed off to Mellow Johnnies — it’s a bike shop, a complete beauty. It wasn’t super fancy but it felt really comfortable. They had smoothies and maps for local riding routes. I could see how you might like living here with all the distances to ride. There’s not really mountains — not by the B.C. definition but long roads to ramble.

Anyhow, this particular meetup event at Mellow Johnny’s had to do with my professional capacity. The people/hosts knew what I was doing with day-job and knew what we were up to and we had some intelligent discourse about this particular topic.

But, my highlight was sharing these envelopes with all these people. And explaining the love and care that went into those things and they opened them up with excitement and questions. Cheap and Cheerful marketing success.

Transforming your customers into your company’s marketing team sounds crazy but just might work, especially when those customers are eager college students.

Host events like HootSuite

According to a recent survey, branded live events are the No. 1 driver of brand recommendations. These events clock in at 65 percent, beating out even a friend’s recommendation (63 percent) in importance when it comes to brand experience.

Knowing this, many campus ambassador programs make events an integral part of marketing efforts in order to attract new consumers. For instance, social media metric company HootSuite empowers users and brand ambassadors to host “HootUps.” These gatherings are put together by campus ambassadors and fans of the company, and involve discussions of social media best practices and networking.

The events are branded with HootSuite swag, yet they offer students real-world value and the ability to make great contacts. If your events offer consumers and customers something useful, they’ll be likely to equate your brand with providing concrete value to their lives.

After eight SXSW conferences, I’ve learned that the hard way. When my company was first getting off the ground, we were completely lost in the shuffle, despite our best efforts. In 2012, however, we had a 28-foot-long, 15,000-pound secret weapon. To stand out amid the gala parties and blow-out bashes hosted by much bigger tech companies, HootSuite decided to take to the streets. We transformed a Ford E-450 shuttle bus into possibly the world’s biggest owl, in honor of our mascot – mounting a pair of giant eyes above the windshield and affixing enormous plastic wings on the sides.

HootSuite’s former VP of community, Dave Olson, inspects the HootBus.

ANDREW LAVIGNE

Cheesy? Yes. Effective, absolutely. By the end of the conference, our logo had been splashed across the pages of USA Today, Mashable and Inc. The conference’s highest profile attendees were clamoring to get on board and party with us. And investors whom I didn’t even know were inquiring about thecompany. In the end, it cost us around $30,000 to buy and outfit the vehicle. Considering that hosting just a single party at SXSW can cost as much, if not more, that’s an absolute steal. This year, in fact, we’re bringing HootBus back for its third ride.

Secretive city leads to call for clarification on conflict of interest

Bob Mackin / Contributing writer
FEBRUARY 20, 2014

HootSuite, one of Vancouver’s most noted tech companies officially opened its new digs in Mount Pleasant, courtesy of a deal with the city, last April. It spent nearly $2 million renovating the city-owned building on East Eighth. File Photo Dan Toulgoet

Cedar Party leader Glen Chernen is alleging Robertson is in conflict of interest because HootSuite was given a lease for 5 East Eighth Avenue without a competitive process. Chernen claims HootSuite was rewarded for helpingRobertson and Vision Vancouver win the 2011 election. Robertson described Chernen’s Feb. 14 petition to B.C. Supreme Court as “bizarre,” and claimed city hall supports HootSuite for economic development reasons.

City hall has not published the minutes of a June 27, 2012 closed-door meeting where the five-year lease was approved. The lease, which began at $47,149.50 a month, was finally released in January, but city hall has refused Freedom of Information requests to show the actual payments received monthly from HootSuite for rent and the city’s payments to HootSuite for use of HootSuite premium services.

“I would feel a lot more comfortable with the lawsuit if it was not coming from a political competitor. The courts should not become a strategic arm of a political campaign,” IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis told the Courier. “The most frustrating feature about all of this that does not do Gregor Robertson or City of Vancouver well is that they are being so bloody secretive about the whole deal.”

This is what people who’ve actually argued these kinds of cases in court have to say about it the whole issue of conflict.

Those interested in the various law cases referred to in this story can find them, or references to them, here, here (do a search with Control F for King) and here.

That’s because courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, say that those elected council members have a right to have opinions, to express public support for local businesses and projects, and even to accept donations from groups they later make decisions about.

The lawsuit, filed Friday at the B.C. Supreme Court by members of a new civic political party called the Cedar Party, claims that Mr. Robertson should not have voted in a closed meeting to lease a city property to HootSuite because he had received benefits from them and was biased.

But lawyers who specialize in municipal law say the direct financial benefit appears to be very unclear and that courts have said there needs to be strong evidence of bias or benefit for the politician to establish that there’s been conflict.

“It’s a very high test,” said Daniel Bennett, a lawyer with Bull, Housser & Tupper who has acted for municipalities in various lawsuits. “Councillors are allowed to be supportive of things they think are good. The fact that [the mayor] is supportive of HootSuite – that’s a real long stretch. The fact that he’s very supportive, that’s what elected officials are supposed to do.”

Barry Williamson, a Kelowna lawyer who has represented northern B.C. cities, also said that the courts have ruled that no one expects mayors to be “empty vessels” with no opinions. And even when a city councillor votes in favour of something benefiting a campaign contributor, that’s not enough to persuade a court that a politician is biased, as a case in Nanaimo established a decade ago.

HootSuite, which had been operating out of offices near the city’s Downtown Eastside, got a lease and option to purchase a former police building near Main and 8th Avenue in the fall of 2012.

The details of the lease were only made public after Glen Chernen, the main spokesman for the Cedar Party, filed a freedom-of-information request. It appeared from what he obtained that HootSuite is leasing the building at market rates for the area, although four other offers had been turned down earlier in the year in a more open bidding process for the building.

Mr. Chernen’s suit says that the second round of the leasing process wasn’t transparent and that Mr. Robertson’s personal relationship with HootSuite founder Ryan Holmes could have biased him in approving the deal.

Specifically, the lawsuit says the mayor got several benefits from the company and expressed public support, indicating his bias. Among those benefits, the suit alleges: he held a town-hall-style public meeting through Twitter at the company’s offices during the 2011 election campaign; he received a promotional kit from them with a T-shirt; he had been to a party at HootSuite offices; and he had tweeted a supportive message about the company.

Mr. Robertson has so far dismissed the suit as bizarre.

“As mayor, I’m very proud of the strong local tech companies that are investing in Vancouver, and city hall will continue to support the new jobs they are creating in our city’s growing economy,” he said in a written statement.

The most famous case in B.C. that spelled out the limits of conflict issues was the Save Richmond Farmland Society lawsuit against Richmond, which argued that a local alderman who had expressed strong support for developing the Terra Nova lands shouldn’t have been allowed to vote. The Supreme Court of Canada said in 1990 that council members aren’t expected to be neutral like judges and noted that councillors are often elected on the basis of their strongly stated positions.

One recent case where the B.C. Court of Appeal did find evidence of a conflict was one where two Islands Trust directors voted in favour of a grant for a local environmental group when they also sat on the board of that group.

Social media company paid $692,145.80 for rent, parking and property taxes in 2013

Bob Mackin / Vancouver Courier
FEBRUARY 28, 2014 02:58 PM

After three months of free rent, Hoostuite’s contract called for payments of $47,149.50 per month ($17 per square foot) for the first year, plus $4,615 per month for 71 parking stalls (at $65 each). Photo: Dan Toulgoet

HootSuite received more from the City of Vancouver last year to renovate the city-owned building it occupies than it paid to use the building.

Figures released by city hall show the social media company paid $692,145.80 for rent, parking and property taxes in 2013, the first of a five-year lease at 5 East Eighth Ave.

On April 10, 2013, city hall paid $698,922 to HootSuite under the tenant improvement allowance clause of the lease contract, which was approved by city council behind closed doors on June 27, 2012.

Various city hall departments also paid HootSuite $42,438.92 for use of the HootSuite Enterprise Package, subscriptions, and Twitter account management.

City hall’s Freedom of Information office had refused to disclose monthly payments to and from HootSuite on five separate requests filed since last September. That changed when the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. intervened in February.

The city now shows it paid $39,458.68 for the HootSuite Enterprise Package from January to November, $423.63 in Library monthly charges and $804.10 for IT monthly charges. The mayor’s office spent $1,667.34 and councillors $85.17 on HootSuite subscriptions.

The purchases from HootSuite fell under the $75,000 threshold for an open, public tendering process. Documents released by city hall, however, show that bureaucrats did not follow policy to research the prices of competing products.

After three months of free rent, the Jan. 21-released contract called for payments of $47,149.50 per month ($17 per square foot) for the first year, plus $4,615 per month for 71 parking stalls (at $65 each). By year five, HootSuite is supposed to pay $61,017 per month in rent.

The tenant improvement allowance was set at $20 per square foot for the 33,282-square-foot former Vancouver Police building. HootSuite’s contract includes two five-year lease extensions and an option to purchase the building for $9.3 million that expires on Dec. 31, 2015. The latest assessment shows the property is worth $10.191 million.

If it exercised the purchase clause, HootSuite would have to repay a portion of the tenant improvement allowance.

Cedar Party leader Glen Chernen launched a B.C. Supreme Court petition on Feb. 14 aimed at disqualifying Mayor Gregor Robertson from office for not declaring his HootSuite conflict of interest under the Vancouver Charter. Chernen claimed HootSuite got the city building lease without tender because it helped Robertson and his Vision Vancouver party win the 2011 election.

Robertson’s defence statement has yet to be filed, but he did call the allegations “bizarre” and claimed city hall was helping HootSuite for economic development reasons.

“This contract with HootSuite for their services is just another piece of proof that some of our elected officials think it is all right to give their friends and supporters special access and privileges to our city without any questions or consequences,” Chernen said.

Neither the office of the mayor nor HootSuite responded for comment on Friday morning.

Zhonka co-founders on 40 under 40 List (new window) – feature article by Paul Schrag from Business Examiner details achievements by 40 area business leaders under 40 years of age including Zhonka’s Jacob Stewart and Dave Olson 6/23/03

In a spontaneous spiel to colleagues, Dave shares the motivations and practical logistics for organizing Hootups – including sending swag packages and promotional support – and articulates the benefits for the organizer (notoriety and being part of something interesting) as well as resultant perks for the company including signups and culture artifacts like photos, tweets and happy users.